The WOT European Championship: the group phase starts

The competition has been raging all over Europe and the national champions have risen. It is now time to find out what country has the best World of Tanks team in 3 versus 3! The actual European competition starts today, and only the top 3 countries will battle at gamescom 2016.

The German captain, Nico "_spiker_", whose team already qualified for gamescom as the host nation, kindly agreed to give us an exclusive interview!

Can you tell us more about you and your team? What are your names and how old are you?

My name is Nico and I play under the nickname "_Spiker_". I live near Leipzig and I am 24 years old. My teammates are Max “Megger91” and Marcus “CranK_PreD”. Max is 25 and lives in Greifswald. Marcus is 27 and lives near Neubrandenburg.

You are now representing your entire country – do you feel any pressure at all? Also, how does it feel to be representing your nation?

I wouldn't say that we currently feel a great deal of pressure, but I do not know how we will feel when we stand on the stage and actually have to play in front of the public. It makes us really proud to be able to show what we can do. Taking part in this new challenge, and representing our country in an offline tournament with so much media coverage, is a special honour for us.

What did you think of the level of the competition so far? Did you expect to get this far?

Of course not! In a tournament with more than 300 teams, with small tank sizes (Tier VI), small teams (3 members) and the best of 1 format, the fighting was very exhausting. Every mistake was punished directly and could mean withdrawal from the tournament. We encountered a few problems in the group stage, but we managed to fix them!

Cheer for your country and support your national representatives via social media !

Head over to our Facebook page to get to know more about your national representatives, their strategies and their expectations! Several contests are already running, and you can win prizes even if you don't play in the tournament!